


Lethe Coda: Faith be for aye

by zinjadu



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka lives!, F/M, Friendship/Love, Gen, Reunions, Rex is the old rebel in RotJ, back from the dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-16 23:21:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8121571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinjadu/pseuds/zinjadu
Summary: Takes place after "Lethe."  After the events of Return of the Jedi, Rex is told that Ahsoka's alive.  He has to go see for himself.Reunion fic, but you don't necessarily need to read "Lethe" first.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [B_Radley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/B_Radley/gifts), [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Lethe](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7803823) by [zinjadu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinjadu/pseuds/zinjadu). 



> For all the comments and support for "Lethe."

“Rex,” Mon Mothma said softly, one of the few from the old days. He never knew her that well, but the old guard tended to keep an eye on each other.

 

“What can I do for you?” he asked, almost coming to attention out of old, old habit, but new habits asserted themselves, and this Rebellion had funny ideas about being too formal.

 

“You need to go to Dantooine,” she said, her eyes bright, shining, almost like she had been crying. “We have a garbled report, it’s almost impossible to believe.”

 

“Well, out with it, I’m all ears,” he said easily, happy to be back at the rebel base and off Endor. Though, he supposed they weren’t rebels now, since the Emperor was dead. What was there left to rebel against?

 

“I can’t be completely certain,” she said, still trying to her ease her way up to saying what ever she had to say. That made him a little bit cautious. Mon had never been particularly cagey with him before.

 

“But it seems like Ahoska’s alive,” she said.

 

And the world, the galaxy, the whole universe seemed to stop. Frozen and locked in a moment in time, even his heart seemed to cease beating. A strange, crystalline moment where everything he had thought he had ever known seemed to shatter and fall apart. Hearing that she was possibly alive, it was like hearing she was dead all over again. Everything from that day coming back to him in clear, holorecording clarity.

 

He had thrown everything he had into the rebellion after that. Kanan had once accused him of trying to die, but the boy didn’t know, didn’t understand. He had gone all in because she would have wanted him to do so, because someone had to keep an eye on these kids. Rex wasn’t one for suicide by Imp, no; he had to stay alive as long as possible. To say the words, to say her name, because that was all of her he had left, that was all of her that was left in the universe.

 

“Are you sure?” he asked, setting the universe into motion again, his voice suddenly ragged and raw as he choked on his own hope and fear.

 

“As sure as I can be,” she said.

 

He left as soon as he could.

 

Because after everything, destroying the second Death Star, watching his general’s son and daughter enjoy their victory, seeing the body of Anakin Skywalker burning through the trees on Endor, Rex had wondered if there was anything left for him in this galaxy or if he would fade away like all the other clones, fade and be forgotten, as was their fate.

 

But maybe, maybe they could defy fate, him and his Commander, one last time.

 

* * *

 

Dantooine was the old Rebel base, back before they moved it to Yavin IV, but there were still people in the old outpost. They welcomed him easily. A young human man told him an insane story of a naked Togruta flagging him down outside of the old caves that were, legend said, haunted by old Jedi.

 

 _Well, that legend just got a boost_ , he thought dryly.

 

“Where did she _go_?” he asked through gritted teeth. The young man raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.

 

“Hey, I brought her here, where she ate a _ton_ of food by the way, and then she left. Said if anyone came looking for her, they’d know where to find her,” the boy said, voice high and strangled.

 

“If you’re leaving anything out,” Rex threatened, his eyes dark.

 

“No! No, sir! Honest, she just went back out into the grass!” the boy exclaimed desperately.

 

So he trudged out into the grasslands of Dantooine, muttering about mad ex-Jedi women who drove him crazy when they should be safely dead so he wouldn’t have to worry about them anymore. But no. No. Not Ahsoka Tano.

 

The day was warm, but not too hot, and he had plenty of water.

 

He had come here on faith, on the wild hope that she was alive. That it really was her, and not someone with some kind of delusion, but as he kept walking, he started to wonder. She had never come back from Malachor, not with Kanan and Ezra and not in the years after. There was no way she could be _here,_ lightyears away, without even a ship to her name.

 

These thoughts had plagued him for the whole trip, but now they were in the forefront of his mind.

 

Then a flicker of movement registered on the edge of his vision. He turned. And then he saw her, standing tall and beautiful in a simple tunic and leggings in the long grass like she wasn’t an impossibility

 

“Ahsoka,” he breathed. His heart in his throat, he took a half step forward.

 

She smiled, a smile sad and joyous at the same time, her blue eyes so, so wonderfully, fantastically alive.

 

“Hey Rexter,” she said, love and a smirk in her voice.

 

And the universe made sense again.

 

* * *

 

Ahsoka felt her heart leap, seeing him again. Older, much older than when she had left him the last time, and there was an aching longing in his eyes. She held out her hand, a gesture, an invitation, a hope. Then he closed the distance between them, bringing his forehead to hers, and she could feel his mixture of sorrow and joy, and she could smell the salt of his tears unshed.

 

Carefully, she reached up to touch his face, to reassure him. But he caught her wrists in his hands, his expression turned dark, something snarling and uneasy in him now.

 

“I said your name. Every day. For years,” he said hoarsely, and she could feel him threatening to spill over, to become undone at the impossibility of her. She realized, then, he felt betrayed in a way, that she had gone ahead without him, died without him or had left and lost herself somewhere far away. He didn’t know, but then he couldn’t know. She shook free of his grip and drew close to him, her arms coming to rest on his shoulders, and she rested her forehead against his once again.

 

“I know you did, and that was part of how I found my way back. You remembered me until I could remember myself,” she said, moving her head to keep his eyes on hers as he tried to look way. “You made it possible for me to come back. Your heart called to mine, across time and space, holding the memory of me for me to find.”

 

“Ahsoka, that makes no sense,” he said gruffly, frowning and fixing her with a wary eye. She smoothed his brow with her fingertips, and then traced the lines of his face. So many more lines now, and some part of her wished they had run, all those years ago. Run and never looked back, but then, they were who they were, and could not change that.

 

“That’s kind of standard when you come back from the dead, Rex,” she said, and they laughed at the sheer absurdity of it all. Two old soldiers who should be dead at least a dozen times over, standing where so many had fallen. And perhaps she should have felt as though they were haunted, knowing more of the dead than the living, but she didn’t.

 

“Come on, I suppose you deserve to have the whole story, such as it is, and what I can remember of it,” she said, sliding away from him, but holding onto his hand. She led him to a small rise, a peaceful little place in the plains where she liked to sit and watch the sun and the sky and the stars.

 

“You were really dead?” he asked, sitting heavily, voice gruff. She sat next to him lightly, but rested her head on his shoulder. The contact seemed to ease something in the both of them.

 

“I was dead, yes. I had died on Malachor at Vader’s hand, or I lost my memory, which is like a death in a way. I’m not sure. It’s starting to fade now, like a dream. Like the first time I died, the memory of that will fade, too,” she said, eyes seeing another time and another place that might have been real or only in her mind’s landscape of fever dreams.

 

“The first time you died? Ahsoka, you’re going to need to explain a lot here. Take pity on me, I’m old and not a Jedi,” he said, something of the old, easy banter coming back to him now, and she smiled, nuzzling closer, which made him smile and wrap an arm around her shoulders.

 

“It’s a long story,” she warned.

 

“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” he said.

 

So she told him. About Mortis, and the Son and Daughter and Father. About Anakin bringing her back from the dead, and about Anakin _being_ Vader and how she tried to make it right, how she tried to save him, but he hadn’t wanted saving. Not then, at least. She told him about the convor and the journey and the remembering, as well as she could. It was all a jumble, but she could still remember Anakin in the Force, not Vader any longer, turning her around and sending her back, and Rex calling her home.

 

“So you know he’s dead,” he said, looking down at her, a terrible regret in his voice.

 

“I know, and I know he had a son,” she said, “A son that saved him, or… inspired him to save himself. I have a feeling there’s a lot that _I’m_ missing."

 

And so he told her. About the Rebellion and the Death Star and the fierce, beautiful young woman who led the Rebels after the destruction of Alderaan, Leia Organa, Anakin’s and Padme’s daughter. And about the arrival of a new hero: Luke Skywalker. How they worked together and overthrew an Empire. And how the boy had burned his father’s body in the old way, the best that he could.

 

“I missed so much,” she said softly, as the sun set and the stars started to appear. “Too many years, too many people. I am sorry, Rex. I missed too much of you.”

 

“Ah, but you’re here now, and even though I still don’t understand how, I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” he told her, and she knew it was true. From the time they had met, they had always found each other again, on the battlefield or across the stars or even the boundary of death. She didn’t know if it was love or something else, something fundamental to who and what they were.

 

“What’s the plan, then? You going to come back? Help the boy start the new Jedi Order? Or help the girl rebuild the Republic?” he asked, ever a man concerned with practicalities, even in the face of a miracle, but she shook her head.

 

“That is my past, not my future. And it’s not their future either. They have to make that for themselves,” she said, and she noticed Rex with withdrawn slightly, as though he wasn’t sure, even now, how close he was allowed to be with her.

 

“So, what are you going to do?” he asked, as contained as ever once again. But just at the edges she could sense his concern.

 

“I don’t know,” she answered, and looked at him from out the corner of her eye, and then she smiled, bright and brilliant and true. “You want to come along and find out with me?”

 

“Thought you’d never ask, Ahsoka.” He smiled then, the first smile she had seen from him since coming back to this life, and she decided that even though she wouldn’t have that smile for long, it was worth it. It was all worth it to love and be loved again, because life was loving and learning and trying and striving, and she thought it was high time they both got to live.

 

For themselves.

**Author's Note:**

> Between us now and here -  
> Two thrown together  
> Who are not wont to wear  
> Life's flushest feather -  
> Who see the scenes slide past,  
> The daytimes dimming fast,  
> Let there be truth at last,  
> Even if despair. 
> 
> So thoroughly and long  
> Have you now known me,  
> So real in faith and strong  
> Have I now shown me,  
> That nothing needs disguise  
> Further in any wise,  
> Or asks or justifies  
> A guarded tongue. 
> 
> Face unto face, then, say,  
> Eyes mine own meeting,  
> Is your heart far away,  
> Or with mine beating?  
> When false things are brought low,  
> And swift things have grown slow,  
> Feigning like froth shall go,  
> Faith be for aye.  
> \--Thomas Hardy


End file.
